"They almost certainly also told her a compact double gave her the identical low gear that she would have with a triple. And, for a very narrow set of assumptions, it does."
I've heard this from more than one source & I too puzzle about it. Assuming the typical MCRB comes with a standard Shimano road cassette, the "big" (I use the term loosely) cog is 27 or 28. If a road triple has a 30 inner ring & a compact double a 34, something has to change before the bike leaves the shop to get that "identical low". Recently I have seen a number of racing bikes fitted with wide range cassettes with 32 or 34 big cogs. I had this discussion during a long climb with a gal with such a set-up. She was kinda grinding away on her lightweight, compact double racing bike while I was able to keep up a decent cadence with the 24 granny on my Atlantis. We discussed the possibility of a triple along with the wide range cassette being more useful on such a climb. The subject of comparative bike weights was left untouched. dougP On Dec 29, 1:21 pm, Steve Palincsar <palin...@his.com> wrote: > On Thu, 2011-12-29 at 11:50 -0600, Joan Oppel wrote: > > She asked me why I could so easily go up the hills (well, I do ride a > > LOT and usually on hilly terrain). I said, well, you might do better > > with more gears. She replied, I know, I shouldn't have listened to > > the guy in the bike shop who sold me this bike and told me it had all > > the gears I would ever need. > > They almost certainly also told her a compact double gave her the > identical low gear that she would have with a triple. And, for a very > narrow set of assumptions, it does. > > Of course, that set of assumptions doesn't include cassettes with 32, 34 > or 36 tooth sprockets, or granny rings with 24 or 26 teeth, or triples > with big rings of 46 or 48 teeth: in other words, Joan Oppel-style > gearing! That is to say, the sort of gearing you will find on most > Rivendells. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
